Yunker fulfills dream of college baseball commitment

Ian Yunker RHP / 2B / Tippecanoe, OH / 2019

TROY - For more than 40 years Frosty Brown has coached baseball. From the college ranks at Eastern Kentucky to high school stops at Bethel and Troy as well as coaching summer American Legion ball, Brown - a member of the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame - has been involved as a baseball mentor.

The sport grew on his grandson, Ian Yunker.

“Since I was a kid, I’ve run around watching his teams play,” Yunker reflected about his grandfather, who was a pitcher in the NCAA Regionals for Western Michigan in the late ‘60s. “I thought that’s what I want to do. I wanted to keep playing the sport as long as I could … with college baseball as a goal.”

The goal has turned into reality for the Tippecanoe High School senior, with a recent commitment to play at Morehead State.

“They first saw me at their camp on campus in late summer/early fall,” noted the 85th-ranked 2019 player in Ohio. “I had a good outing throwing two innings and striking out all of them but one. Then it was a matter of taking a visit in October.”

The trip to the campus in Kentucky went well for the 6-1 175-pounder.

“They have everything I like there,” explained Yunker, a right-handed pitcher. “What they have is modest, but they’re in the process of new facilities. The campus was beautiful with a great learning environment.”

Schools such as Tiffin, Kentucky Wesleyan and Heidelberg had been under consideration by Yunker, but that changed when the Ohio Valley Conference school came into the picture.